In a viral TikTok video, a mom confronts her son’s bully at school. In a follow-up video, she explains why she did that instead of talking to the girl’s parents
Finding out that your child is getting bullied at school can be scary and emotional. There are right and wrong ways to handle the situation, though it can be difficult to see that with a clear head when you’re in the thick of it and all your mama bear instincts are saying to protect your kid. Still, a TikTok mom is facing backlash after she confronted her son’s bully at their school instead of talking to the little girl’s parents, and now, she wants to explain herself.
Bettina Ramirez is mom to a fourth grader named Abraham. She learned from her son’s teacher (and confirmed by Abraham himself) that a classmate was spreading rumors about him at school. So Ramirez made a controversial choice: instead of going through the kids’ teachers, the school’s administration, or the bully’s parents, she confronted the little girl herself during lunchtime in the cafeteria.
“I’m Abraham’s mom and he’s been telling me that you’ve been bullying him,” Ramirez can be heard saying to the girl, who is shown on video with her face obscured. “And I’d like to ask you to stop.”
The girl nervously shuffles her feet back and forth as Ramirez continues, “Do not mess with my son, do you understand me? I’m not playing. The next time that he tells me that you’re bullying him, I will go knock at your parents’ door.”
@selfmadelove87 I’m sorry but what you won’t do is walk up to my kid while in school at that and say ANYTHING!! PERIOD I’LL TALK TOMY CHILD NOT YOU
♬ original sound – @selfmadelove87
Ramirez has actually removed her video from TikTok, but it’s been reposted by other moms who are critical of how she handled the situation, like the one above, who wrote, “I’m sorry but what you won’t do is walk up to my kid while in school at that and say ANYTHING!”
There are some people on Ramirez’s side, saying she was sticking up for her kid and any loving mom would do the same. But confronting a child you don’t know in her school might be going a tad too far—and recording the interaction and posting it on the internet is definitely too much.
Amid the backlash, Ramirez posted another video where she addressed some of the criticism she’s received.
@bizi_be Replying to @janiewilliams85
♬ original sound – B.Ramirez
She says she tried to track down the little girl’s parents, but teachers at the school aren’t allowed to give out personal information, and other parents she asked didn’t know the bully’s parents. She said that as she asked around, she learned that other kids had been bullied by this little girl, too.
“I do not have time to stand around after school and try to look for this child among a thousand other kids to try and talk to her parents,” she says.
She also claims that the little girl’s parents were “already aware” and had done nothing to stop it. “I’m not even sure what good talking to her parents would have done,” she says. Ramirez pointed out that she made sure not to include the child’s face and had recorded the encounter so that there would be an accurate representation of what transpired.
And in a second follow-up video, Ramirez addressed concerns that she was trespassing on school grounds when she recorded her video.
@bizi_be ♬ original sound – B.Ramirez
She says she was at the school to have lunch in the cafeteria with Abraham, and that’s when she spotted the girl, whom Abraham confirmed was his bully.
Ramirez has turned off commenting on her TikTok so it’s not clear if she’ll address any more criticism, but she did end her latest video with a message to the bully: “I hope that she takes this experience and I hope that it prevents her from doing this to other children.”
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